Lesson 3

• Art is central to man’s existence because it makes accessible feelings and emotions of people from the past and present, from one continent to another.
• Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that every particular substance in the world has an end, or telos in Greek, which translates into “purpose”.
• According to Aristotle, a thing to reach its purpose, it also has to fulfill its function.
• Man, in Aristotle’s view of reality, is bound to achieve a life of fulfillment and happiness, or in Greek, eudaimonia.
• All men move toward this final end.
• Different art forms come with distinctive functions.
• There is no one-to-one correspondence between an art and its function.
• Some art forms are more functional than others.
• Architecture, as an art, is highly functional just like most applied arts.
• A building as a work of art is obviously made for a specific purpose.
• The functions of art are classified into three: Personal (public display or expression), Social (celebration or to affect collective behavior), and Physical (utilitarian).
• The personal functions of art are varied and highly subjective, depending on the person—the artist who created the art.
• An artist may create an art out of the need for self-expression.
• An art may also be therapeutic.
• The social function of art is apparent in physical functions of art, such as artworks that are crafted to serve a physical purpose.
• Art demands so much more than mere efficiency.
• Music has expanded its function and coverage, with people listening to and composing music for reasons that were foreign to early civilizations.
• Performances art like plays or satires can also rouse emotions and rally people toward a particular end.
• In Plato’s metaphysics of view of reality, the things in this world are only copies of the original, the eternal, and the true entities that can only be found in the World of Forms.
• Architecture, the most prominent functional art form, is a form of art that lends itself to multiple functions.
• Music assures synchronicity among dancers and guarantees that marches are simultaneous.
• Sculpture, another functional art form, has long existed for various purposes, particularly for religion.
• Music, as an art, was principally functional, used for dance and religion.
• A functional object cannot be claimed to be beautiful unless it can perform its function sufficiently.
• Despite efficiency being a part of beauty in some works of art, an efficient functional object is not necessarily beautiful.
• According to Plato in his masterpiece, The Republic, artists are imitators and art is mere imitation.
• In some orphanages and home for abandoned elders, art is used to help residents process their emotions or while away their time.
• Art is considered to have a social function if and when it addresses a particular collective interest as opposed to a personal interest.
• Political art is a very common example of an art with a social function.
• Art may convey message of protest, contestation, or whatever message the artist intends his work to carry.
• Often, art can also depict social conditions.
• Aristotle in the Poetics claimed that poetry is a literary representation in general.
• Human beings endeavor to reach the Forms all throughout his life, starting with formal education in school.
• Socrates is worried that art objects represent only the things in this world, copies themselves of reality.
• Aristotle considered art as an aid to philosophy in revealing truth.
• When one ascribes beauty to another person, he refers to an imperfect beauty that participates only in the form of beauty in the World of Forms .
• Plato was deeply suspicious of arts and artists for two reasons: they appeal to the emotion rather than to the rational faculty of men and they imitate rather than lead one to reality
• What art endeavors to do is to provide a vision of what might be or the myriad possibilities in reality.
• The kind of imitation that art does is not antithetical to the reaching of fundamental truths in the world.
• Poetry rouses emotions and feelings and thus, clouds the rationality of people.